Sir, - I would like to congratulate Siobhan Purcell (Rite and Reason, August 24th) for her honest account of her time as a nun in a US convent. I was sad but not surprised to read of how her superior had terrorised and beaten her and her young nun colleagues.
As a younger priest I suffered great psychological and verbal abuse at the hands of some of my clerical superiors. That abuse came to a head one night when a clerical superior (now deceased) knocked me to the presbytery dining-room floor and kicked and punched me. I was so shocked and broken by the experience that all I could do was to go to bed and cry.
When I later told a very senior luminary of the Irish Church (still alive) about what had happened, he accused me of lying.
The abuse of innocent little children must be the very worst thing the Church has tolerated and covered up. But spare a thought also for the many of us who as adults were victims of abuse within the system. Maybe we too are a "walking wounded"? - Yours, etc.,
Most Rev Patrick Buckley, Presiding Bishop, The Oratory Society, Larne, Co Antrim.